Discuss how your choices might differ from theirs and the potential impact on the organization
See Below.
chose to discuss work-life balance and DEI initiatives to analyze. Wellbeing is described as the “state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy.” Having a work-life balance is an important component to an employees overall wellbeing. Having the ability to balance the responsibilities of your job and the responsibilities of your home and/or family equally promotes physical, emotional, and mental health and career success. A correlation was found with corporations with a more diverse and equitable workforce and employees reporting higher and better change power. Change power is, in turn, linked with better performance, but also leadership and employee engagement and retention (Venkataraman et al., 2023).
Both wellbeing/work-life balance and DEI are important to organizational health and longevity, they are also intertwined more than we may think. For example, data gathered by over 800 U.S. companies over 30 years, showed that companies who had universal policies for family leave time, flexible scheduling, and child care assistance, also had a more diverse workforce and more women in positions of leadership. Women and people of color often benefit significantly more than others from having this work/life support, because they often face the greatest work/life challenges. Black women are nearly two times more likely to quit a job, or decline a job offer due to childcare problems. Childcare costs are rising for most who rely on it to go to work each day, and for some, it can be 30-60% of the median income for Hispanic and Black families (Dobbin & Dobbin, 2022).
Two effective ways an organization can assist with this include:
Subsidized Child Care Programs or Child Care Assistance Programs: where possible, a combination of income-based vouchers and a child care center can make childcare available to all or most employees, freeing them to focus on their work and become more productive workers.
Flexible Hours/Remote Work Opportunities: studies show that most remote workers are just as, but more likely to be more productive than those who commute to an office daily. Several million women left the workforce in 2020 due to school and child care facility closures during the pandemic, which emphasizes the fact that women shoulder the majority of family care responsibilities, and when unable to find or have child care, will render them incapable of working. Its easier to balance family and work responsibilities where daily commuting isn’t needed and adjustments in schedule are flexible. (Hunt, 2021)
